Babbacombe's (1941) by Susan Scarlett #DeanStreetDecember

Book Beginnings on Fridays (hosted by Rose City Reader)

We are this term losing a head girl who has been in every way splendid. For me, and for the staff, and the school, next term will be the poorer because Elizabeth Carson is not with us.

👗 I have read three Susan Scarlett's so far (two adults' and one children's), and they're all so satisfying, that I decided to keep exploring her books. Babbacombe's combined working life, family dynamics, and romance. Beth Carson is just finishing school with great marks, and is now ready to enter working life as a junior in Gowns department at the Babbacombe's - a department store belongs to old Mr. Babbacombe.

👗 Beth is lucky because she would join her father, who has been working at the same establishment for many years. How many girls could boast the privilege to go to and from work in their father's company and protection? That would be an ultimate father-daughter time. Providing they have an intimate and affectionate relationship, which the Carsons possess. They embody the perfect family one could ever wish - loving each other, and thriving in each others' being. And now it's time to throw some prickly pins into their blissful existence.

👗 First, a spoilt, self-centered cousin has arrived from the country to live with them: a Dulcie Carson. Her single aim is to get a rich husband. Then Edward, Beth's brother, begins to show early stages of cataracts which affect his sights. An operation would be performed to see whether his sights would be improved or go totally blind. A devastating condition that shakes the family. Lastly, old Babbacombe's ne'er-do-well bur handsome son, David Babbacombe, who entered Beth's life as she was trapped inside the lift with him, and scorned him for not earning his own money, which in turn inspired him to get a job at the Babbacombe's.

Friday 56 Quote (hosted by Heads Full of Books:

You know, she was a girl of sense. I'm not sure she wasn't right. How would it be if I came back into Babbacombe's? ~ David to his father

👗 It's not difficult to imagine how the story would go from here (and even how it would end). And your guesses wouldn't have been very far from true. This is that kind of story, but with a cheerful and affectionate tone, as well as vividly portrayed characters. The characters are the strongest point of this book. I loved the family's dynamic; the way they daily interact. You can feel that they belong to each other, and feel at ease among the others. They become companions and partners, though they keep respecting each according to their merits. It reminds me a lot of my own family. I loved too, that Scarlett didn't "punish" the antagonist too severely.

👗 Babbacombe's reminded me a lot of Émile Zola's The Ladies Paradise. Both have similarities; from the setting (a department store), to the heroine (Denise and Beth are both junior salesgirl in Gowns department), and they both fell in love with their bosses, though in Beth's case, the boss' son. Denise and Beth are also torn between the decency of class difference and their hearts, with Mouret and Babbacombe are both despaired by their girls' aloofness. I wonder if Susan Scarlett was inspired by The Ladies Paradise, though Scarlett's version was stripped of any Victorian's superfluous exaggeration, typical especially of Zola's. All in all, this is a charming story and perfect read for #DeanStreetDecember. Many thanks to Dean Street Press to republish it!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read for:

Dean Street December #DeanStreetDecember

hosted by Liz @ Adventures in reading, running and working from home

Mini Reviews for #AgathaChristieSS24: December

The Chocolate Box

Poirot is telling Hastings his humiliating failure when he's still a detective in Belgian Police force. At the time when there's struggle between state and church in France, a fanatical anti-Catholic deputy was murdered just one day short of becoming Minister. Reluctantly, for Poirot was a Catholic himself (a surprising fact for me!), he took to the investigation. He found the clue in a new box of chocolate on the table; the mismatched color of the box and the lid was suspicious. The murdered man was fond of chocolate, and one of the house member or his guests must have put the poison inside of those chocolates. But who? Could Poirot solve the mystery based on the evident? Or did he made an incorrect solution?

I liked this one, a very simple and basic murder. Poirot failed this time because he hadn't acquired the art of psychology yet, and just depended on the facts. It is an iconic case too, because "chocolate box" would become Hasting's keyword to remind Poirot to be humble - which he fails all the time! LOL...

Rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Christmas Tragedy

In a rather similar theme with Poirot's story, Miss Marple lamented that she had once failed to prevent a murder. She met a couple in a Hydro resort, and knew at once that the husband was getting a way to rid of his wife. She had warned the rather foolish but devoted wife, and was cautious not to let the couple alone. But the wife was found murdered one day, when the husband had a perfect alibi. Had Miss Marple, like Poirot, made a wrong deduction after all? Or was this a clever murder?

This one, by far, is my most favorite of Miss Marple's stories. The old spinster appears less vague than ever, and the murder plot is one of Christie's genius - seems simple but very clever.

Rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Agatha Christie Short Stories 2024: DECEMBER #AgathaChristieSS24

Two more stories, and then we will complete our Agatha Christie Short Stories 2024 challenge! How have you fared? I wish you've been having fun with these stories - some are probably delightful, the others are boring. In general, I'm glad I've decided to do this. The question remains, should I do it again next year? But first, let's have a look at our two last stories for December. We'll have a Miss Marple and a Poirot - both are a bit Christmassy, and accidentally, have a similar theme. 

Keep scrolling down to see whether there will be another #AgathaChristieSS or not... 

THE CHOCOLATE BOX

Poirot’s only failed case. A French Deputy is found dead on the eve of becoming a minister. This is a rare example of Poirot acknowledging failure and also an account of his life in Brussels as a member of the police force.

First published as a book in the US version of the collection Poirot Investigates (1925), it wouldn’t appear in a UK collection until Poirot’s Early Cases (1974).

A CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY

Miss Marple meets a couple and immediately knows the husband means to kill the wife. But when the wife is found murdered, he has an alibi. Could our beloved amateur sleuth have made a mistake?

The story was published with its revised title in the 1932 collection The Thirteen Problems, and it has a similar plot device as in one of her famous novels.


Now, what about 2025? Will there be another #AgathaChristieSS? The answer is.... YES! We are going to do #AgathaChristieSS25! I will post the detail, including twelve titles that we will read, in a few weeks. Meanwhile, have fun with the December titles!

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (2002) by Jan-Philipp Sendker

Book Beginnings on Fridays (hosted by Rose City Reader)

The old man's eyes struck me first. They rested deep in their sockets, and he seemed unable to take them off me. Granted, everyone in the teahouse was starring at me more or less unabashedly, but he was the most brazen. As if I were some exotic creature he'd never seen before.

💓 Julia Win came to Burma to seek answer. Answer to her father's mysterious disappearance four years ago from New York, and from her and her mother's life. One day his father Tin Win left abroad, but never returned. They found out that he went to Burma, instead of the country he intended to. But there his traces disappeared. Four years later Julia read a love letter to her father written by a Burmese woman called Mi Mi. Who is Mi Mi? And why had her father never spoken about the first twenty years of his life in Burma to anybody, not even his wife? Julia decided to go to Kalaw, Burma, to get to the truth.

💓 In Kalaw, she was met by a strange old man called U Ba. That's the encounter in the opening line. He told her a wonderful story of her father - the first twenty years of his life he never told anyone before, including his relationship with Mi Mi. And what a story that is!

💓 The story U Ba told Julia was, for Westerner even at that time (1960s), extraordinary. Superstition and astrologer were two dominant things in Burmese people in every step of their lives, typical of South East Asian country whose people were poor and low educated. Tin Win was born on the "wrong day", and so their parents expected only bad things to him and themselves. Every calamity was blamed on Tin Win; and he grew up as a sensitive, affectionate, intelligent boy, capable of great love, but never been loved.

Friday 56 Quote (hosted by Heads Full of Books):

Tin Win's life had not spanned twenty-one days when, at least from his mother's perspective, its whole course had been decided. Lived. Forfeited.

💓 When his mother, who was his only family left, abandoned him, it was too much for Tin Win. I literally wept with him. How could a mother do that to her only child? No matter how stupid or superstitious one is, surely a mother should have had an instinct to protect her child! But she left and never returned, so Tin Win was brought up by a very kind neighbor, a woman called Suu Kyi, as her own son. Then, another calamity came, little Tin Win got a rare cataract on both eyes and gone blind.

💓 A wise monk at the monastery taught Tin Win that human being is capable of perceiving things much better and sharper when he use all his other senses besides the eyesight. And Tin Win began to be aware of even the most imperceptible sounds around him; the flutter of a butterfly's wings, the rustle of certain leaves (every tree made different sound), and even... the heartbeats of people around him. Particularly, that of a girl of his age, named Mi Mi.

💓 Mi Mi is crippled, she couldn't walk due to her stiff legs (polio?), so she crawled on all four to get anywhere. The most undignified way a human being could imagine to move, but surprisingly, Mi Mi always moved very gracefully. She was always patient and never complained of her condition. Soon Tin Win and Mi Mi became inseparable. Everyday, year after year, Tin Win was seen carrying Mi Mi on his back, while the girl is guiding him, becoming his eyes, during their excursions. And just as they are dreaming of marriage, and what they will do to build a future, a summon from a rich uncle in New York came - Tin Win must go away from everything he loved in the world - his Kalaw, his home, and his love, Mi Mi. And that's how he later met Julia's mother. What happened then? Had he ever met Mi Mi again? And will Julia reunite with his father in Burma? Does he live with Mi Mi? You must read this amazing story to find the answer.

💓 Suffice to say, this is a magnificent book. It's been quite a long time since I last read a book that has left deep Impression in me long after I finished it. And I have no doubt this would be my most favorite book of the year. I can't find appropriate words to describe it - it's a humbling experience to read this book. It's tender, deep, touching, and written so beautifully it made me want to cry. I admire the kind of love between Tin Win and Mi Mi. It's not a passionate one that leaves you wretched when you're separated, nor is it a selfish one that you have to have the other for yourselves no matter what. No, it's much deeper and beyond all that; no pain, no jealousy, just contentment that you have loved and been loved, and no matter how far away you are from each other, that love is always in you, no one or nothing can take it away from you.

Two of my favorite quotes:

"And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist. A moment that transforms us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next. And if these turning points are real, are we aware of them as they happen, or do we recognize the discontinuity only much later, in hindsight?"

"Do we leave the dead behind or do we take them with us? I think we take them with us. They accompany us. They remain with us, if in another form. We have to learn to live with them and their deaths."

Rating: 💓💓💓💓💓

Dean Street December Reading List #DeanStreetDecember

December is just around the corner, and that means, it's time for a reading list for one of my favorite yearly reading events: #DeanStreetDecember, hosted by the lovely Liz @ Adventures in reading, running and working from home. For you who isn't familiar yet, Dean Street Press is a publisher devoted to republishing lost gems of vintage literature, from Golden Age Detective novels to middlebrow novels by twentieth century women writers. And December is always the perfect month to be sucked into those kinds of books, don't you agree?

This year in particular, I don't feel like reading some sappy Christmas-themed books. After an exhausting second semester, both in work and in personal life, I am craving for gentle things, not overexcited and loud noises which Christmas always brings. So, I decided to devote my December mostly with books from Dean Street Press, especially those from the Furrowed Middlebrow selection. Here's my initial list:

Babbacombe's by Susan Scarlet

Near Neighbors by Molly Clavering

Because of Sam by Molly Clavering

Kate Hardy by D.E. Stevenson

A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair

I don't know whether I can manage to read, let alone review, more than five, but I also have Miss Granby's Secret in reserve, if-just if-I'd be able to squeeze one more.

How about you? Would you join Dean Street December? What do you plan to read?

Never Cry Wolf (1963) by Farley Mowat #NonFicNov24

🐺 A nonfiction that reads like fiction - that's how I describe Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves. Farley Mowat is a Canadian writer and environmentalist. Published in 1963, this is Mowat's memoir (some regarded it as fictionalized account of his experiences, but I'd treat it as nonfiction) during his appointment as Canadian Wildlife Service officer to investigate the cause of the declining Arctic caribou populations, and whether wolves are the culprit.

🐺 Mowat left for the Keewaton Barren Lands near Lake Manitoba in 1948. His inexperience in the field (he was a new recruit) provides some of the hilarious accounts; from his arrival by small private airplane, to his first encounter with the wolves. He first stayed with a Canadian named Mike who lives with his huskies in an Eskimo hut. But Mike soon left the hut, leaving him alone.

🐺 As soon as he found a perfect point at Wolfhouse Bay as his quarry, he started his job by following through binoculars, the movements of a family of three adult wolves and their pups who live inside a den not far from Mowat's quarry. He even named the three adults: George and Angeline as the father and mother, and Uncle Albert for the other single male who lives with them, and often share the caring of the pups when their parents are gone. Mowat soon fell to the family routine; George and Uncle Albert are usually go hunting in the evening, and take their leisure naps during the day.

🐺 One day he followed the family approaching a group of caribou who were grazing peacefully, without showing any signs of agitation, though the wolves were only some feet away. Mowat was surprised to witness this; he had expected to see some voracious hunt, but none happened. The wolves just walked away nonchalantly around the edge of the caribous circle. What's happening? That didn't tally what Mowat, what people used to to imagine about wolves - the cunning beasts who ate little innocent children while walking alone, and etcetera (Little Red Riding Hood came to mind). Mowat's observations taught him a rather unsettling truth, that the fast declining of caribou's population isn't caused by wolves, but by men!

"Whenever, wherever men have engaged in a mindless slaughter of animals, including other men, they are often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy. And the less reason there is for the slaughter the greater their campaign of vilification."

🐺 Contrary of common opinion, when they're indeed hunting for caribou, wolves only take the weakest, or most ailing from the pack. The caribous do feed the wolves, but the wolves strengthen the caribous in return, by getting rid of their weakest. In a way the wolves are reserving, rather than endangering, caribous.

🐺 All in all, this was an eye opening, hilarious, but also touching (especially in the end) read about wolves. Some of my favorite moments with Mowat's wolf family are when George saw Mowat when he lowered his pants to pee; then there's Uncle Albert's amorous adventure with a Husky bitch named Kua. Mowat's hilarious moment with Angeline, is when his hungry stomach's loud rumble bemused, then disgusted, her. I just loved how Mowat treated the wolves with respect; that's how we must treat all creatures, flora and fauna.

*I listened to the audiobook, very well narrated by Adam Sims.

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Nonfiction November 2024 #NonFicNov24

hosted by: Liz, Frances, Heather, Rebekah, and Deb

The Golden Mole: and Other Vanishing Treasure (2022) by Katherine Rundell #NonFicNov24

🦒 In The Golden Mole, Katherine Rundell introduces us to some of the world's most exotic creatures which are also endangered. Among these animals, some are no strangers to us, like the crows, wolves, bear, or elephant. We often hear or watch about hare, giraffe, or hedgehog, though we might not see them physically. But how many of us are familiar with wombat, lemur, narwhal, or pangolin? This book talks about all of them, and several others.

🦀 However, this is not some kind of encyclopedia about exotic animals, it's much more interesting. Rundell slips stories, myths, or anecdotes related to each animal, sometimes even concerning prominent historical personages whose stories had been linked to certain animal. The most fantastic is that of Coconut Hermit Crab. You must have been familiar with Amelia Earhart's story of disappearance over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to circumnavigate the world in 1937. One of the many theories believed that some Coconut Hermit Crabs must have eaten Amelia Earhart's body. She was probably stranded on Nikumaroro island, known as home of these crabs. Some human bones were found there many years later, but they're lost on the way to investigation, so we still don't know the truth. But it's an interesting fact nevertheless.

🐨 Another interesting story is involving Wombat. The creature - some says it's a mixture of capybara, koala, and bear cub - was a favorite pet of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet. He had sketched Mrs. Morris (Rossetti's model and muse) taking a wombat on a leash, both with halos over their heads. A wombat had also been gifted to Napoleon's wife, Josephine, by a ship's captain. Speaking of gifted exotic animals, do you know that Cleopatra had once gifted a giraffe to Julius Caesar who then brought it to Ancient Rome?

🐻 A funny anecdote came from the inimitable Lord Byron concerning bear. He used to keep a tamed Bear while studying at University of Cambridge, as dogs were forbidden. When he was asked what they should do with it, his answer was, "It should sit for fellowship" 🤣

🦔 But two animals resonated more to me personally than others. The first is Hedgehog. Whenever I hear the word 'hedgehog', an image from my first picture book, which my mother introduced to me when I was very little, comes immediately to mind. It's a hedgehog with an apple stuck on his spikes, stealing it from two animals who picked it from the tree (the apple falls right to its spikes). That image stuck with me, that I always assume hedgehog eats fruits. But this book taught me that it's just a myth, its diet actually consists of insects and worms. Another animal from my childhood picture books about flora and fauna (my parents bought me a lot of these), is Pangolin (Trenggiling in Indonesian). Its name came from a Malay word 'panggiling' which means roller, from the way it rolls its body while in danger. Their scales were used for Chinese medicine.

🕊 Some more interesting bits from this book:

• The unihemispheric sleep in swifts (birds), they are able to shut up half of the brain at a time, while floating in the air inside the clouds. Amazing, right?
• The reclusive creature of Lemur who's able of changing eye color, is another wonder. One of the species is even superstitiously believed to be able to prophecy death.
• I didn't remember this, but the Seal has capacity of learning language. Ahab in Moby Dick recognized the seals' voices.
• The Narwhal's tusk were once mistakenly thought as unicorn's horn. Queen Elizabeth I was presented at least two narwhals by some voyagers.
• The Crows are the Einstein among birds. On an experiment, they punish some boys who're wicked to them, but were known in real life to have rewarded those who fed them.

🐘 Elephants are actually afraid of bees, they sting elephants' soft tissues inside their trunks. Elephants are gentle and caring creatures. When finding bones of dead friend, they will salute it by lightly touching their bones. An elephant returning to its group would get a ceremonial embraces by intertwining their trunks. Seahorse is the only creature that it is the male who gets pregnant (a fact I learned from TV series F.R.I.E.N.D.S, when Ross wants to calm the pregnant Rachel down by pointing this fact out. What about the Golden Mole, who lent its name to the title? As a species, it's nearer to elephant than ordinary mole. It is the most mysterious animal from all that is discussed in this book. We know almost nothing about it, other than its iridescent quality, from which we called it 'golden' mole.

⭐ All in all, it's a wonderful book about nature and its wonder, told in an interesting and sometimes funny way that will interest non-biologists reader like me.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Nonfiction November 2024 #NonFicNov24

hosted by Liz, Frances, Heather, Rebekah, and Deb